A generation for transformation
Friends, after my last blog post I wanted to take you on a quick tour of our new location on the east side of San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica.
Want more info on how you can come do a Discipleship Training School – email dts@ywamsj.org
Want to come with your youth group, high school or high school – email teams@ywamsj.org
Or simply want more info about who we are – email info@ywamsj.org
Since 1999 God has spoken to Giacomo and I to have a University of the Nations Training facility here in the capital of Costa Rica. After 15 years the Lord released to us our very own 30 acre piece of land to develop this Campus.
As Youth With A Mission in San Jose Costa Rica we have a heart to see this generation not only reach with the Gospel message, embrace Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, but also trained and equipped to passionately obey the call on their lives to go and make disciples through whatever means the Lord is calling them to do this according to Matthew 28.
This is the entrance to our new land, you are more than welcome to come visit, bring a team, minister with us, reach out to the communities in Costa Rica, send youth to come and get trained.
Email us for more info to info@ywamsj.org or get a hold of of any of us personally.
But you can also find us online through our website YWAM San Jose!!
Did you know that Homes of Hope started out of San Diego baja in 1990 and has since spread out to many different countries around the globe.
These last few days they have had their International Gathering in Montego Bay, Jamaica. They gather to ask the Lord for direction, His leadership over the ministry and ongoing growth to see more families blessed with a adequate home and find a better future because of it.
Not only are homes being built in Mexico and Central America but also in Africa (Uganda) and more coming. Homes of Hope does not only exist to build a home, but to bring Hope to a community. We believe the Lord wants us to reach those within the community and often it starts by providing them with proper shelter, but doesn’t stop there. Thank you for your ongoing support and coming to be part of that here in Costa Rica or around the world.
Wow what an amazing week Marjolein had in YWAM El Salvador in the first week of this month of April.
Being invited to speak in a Discipleship Training School is always a huge blessing, but also very humbling. Every day the Lord gave direction and we saw Holy Spirit give much revelation to this wonderful group of young people.
They come from El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala and they are being equipped to be send out into the nations with the message of unconditional love – the message of Jesus Christ.
At the end of the week God spoke to several of them to get baptized and give their lives completely in surrender to the Kingdom of God and be used by Him to go into all the world and make disciples.
The Word tells us to teach them all that Jesus has taught us and to baptize them, so that is what happened and there is no greater joy than seeing people received revelation of this Love that they are accepted into God’s family.
Thank you for making it possible for me to go to El Salvador and be blessed by what God did during this week.
A few years ago in our mission an idea arose of bringing education to remote areas around the world.
Since we are a Christian University with a focus on missions, the term coined was:
“University in a box” – by our founder Loren Cunningham.
At the Campus in Kona Hawaii they started working on converting a shipping container into a mobile classroom to be able to bring it to remote locations such as Papua New Guinea, where quality education was not available.
Now here in Costa Rica, in cooperation with a local company we were able to convert a long shopping container into a mobile classroom to bring quality education in the area of technology to remote areas of Costa Rica.
Soon we will start bringing it to different places to be put in use for children in areas without good access to learning technical skills and digital platforms for the use of seeing their communities and cities transformed and grow.
Exciting new things are u folding and we believe this is only the beginning of seeing a generation not only reached with a message of love and truth but also bringing quality education in a box!
Bringing quality does not mean more money, it means coming together with our resources and with creativity come up with innovative ideas to help those with little access to get access remotely!
Exciting new times…
So according to my daughter, I preach to every Uber driver.
“No way,” I told her I don’t, or do I?
The next time I took a trip (in January) to the airport in an Uber, I caught myself sharing the depth of my relationship with Jesus with my driver.
I guess she was right!!! And I love it!!
So today was no exception…catching a ride at 3am is always an interesting thing.
Most drivers are either not fully awake or they say they are but their driving skills tell me otherwise..
Today our luggage barely fit (and it is just me and my husband). I had to ask him to pull over to change seats so I could sit in the front instead of the back with barely room to breath!
I was stuck between the seat in front, the suitcases (both) and the window, being claustrophobic a bit this was no good, so I made my husband sit back there…yeah really I did 😳😬🤭!!
Now things got serieus….
Let the conversation begin!
After a few short introductions I started rolling off nu questions…
He was not from San Jose and I am not sure he knew hoew to use the Waze app…he scared me a little with his driving actualy.
So he was raised with ‘faith’, nut decided it was not for him. He preferred science and logic, over a ‘being’ somewhere that seemed to ‘unlogical’?
But in the subject of girlfriends, he preferred them ‘Christian’ casuse they were more righteous and nice and better looking.
So I asked him: “So non-believers are not as righteous and nice?”
“Right.” Was his answer.
I responded:
“Did you realize you just called yourself unrighteous, not nice and ugly?”
Silence in the Uber….
Lets just say, I gave him a few things to think about…especially about being in realtionships with woman for what he gets from them, but is not willing to give anything in return…
Needless to say, I shared niet heart and we had a good conversation. Have a nice day sir and “Dios te bendiga.” (God bless you)
Another Uber driver who had to deal with a conversation from me!!
These past few days I was reminded of something very important….
In the beginning of 1999, twenty years ago, during these exact months, Giacomo and I were in Worcester South Africa with Youth With A Mission. We were participating in a Community Development School at the new purchased YWAM Training Center in South Africa.
It was during this time (as a very newly wed couple) that God spoke to us about starting a new YWAM Training Facility, University of the Nations Campus in the capital of Costa Rica.
We had no idea what that all meant, but it was the word of the Lord to us. This word is now exactly 20 years old, 15 of those years have been pioneering this new YWAM Training Center, University of the Nations Campus, which we started in June 2004!!
Tomorrow, March 10th, after twenty years of being away from this exact place and not having been back as a couple since then (Giacomo has alone), we are going to South Africa to partake in our annual leadership meetings of the University of the Nations.
Not only did God give us a word of a brand new YWAM Missionary training Center, but He also has allowed us over the past 5 years to form part of a body of leaders on an international level. The privilege to learn from amazing leaders who laid the foundation that we are now building on is truly incredible and continues to be for us a tremendous honor and blessing.
The Word was clear: “Raise up and equip young people who will be the next generation of Spirit led leaders in society in Costa Rica and around the world.”
Since early 1999, we have followed after God, sought His will on how to go about starting this new training location for missionaries, equipping them, loving them, training them and sending them out as passionate followers/disciples of Jesus.
In those years we have served in many different places and have been able to see God do amazing things and we have been able to train close to 1000 young people from our location, sending them into the nations with the Gospel of Jesus Christ!!!
****** When God gives you a Word, you make steps to walk towards the fulfillment of that Word and scripture says that His Word will never return void ******
Tomorrow we will embark on a 2 day journey to travel to South Africa. Pray for our children as they stay in Costa Rica. Our oldest have exam week while we are gone, our youngest has already cried several times and will miss mommy the most (and mommy will find it hard to leave)…..but we believe this is part of what the Lord has for us.
As I reflect on twenty years, I reflect on God’s faithfulness to our lives and that what He has given to us. Not just our beautiful kids and how He has blessed us that way, but the extended family of YWAM San Jose. This beautiful family that has gone through all kinds of trials and challenges and has recently moved into our ‘promised land’….
Reflecting on that makes us anticipate what God might want to do in the next 20 years through our lives and the YWAM San Jose, Costa Rica training facility and family.
Giacomo and I believe the Lord wants to give us a fresh word for the next 20 years, will you join us in prayer for that. We will be visiting the very same place we were 20 years ago, of which we unfortunately do not have any digital photos, but we might be able to find some ‘printed’ photos and then show you what things are looking like today.
How exciting to co-create with God, to listen to His voice, to believe that what He speaks will come to pass and will never return void!!
****** Listen for His voice today, quiet your heart and He will speak *****
For many years the Lord has blessed us in amazing ways with vehicles. In one way or the other we have always driven a car that came to us by a miracle.
The stories are long but we can testify that the vehicles we have been driving have truly been a miracle either through a very interesting circumstance or the amazing generosity of friends who saw the need at the moment.
Marjolein has been having trouble with her car for a while now in the sense that is has been costing us money maintaining and fixing it to the point where right now it has not been able to pass yearly road inspection.
The school year is about to start, the car is being worked on and until it passes inspection she will have to find another car to drive the kids to school and pick them up every day.
It has been an uphill battle to see the release of a new car for her and we ask that you stand with us in prayer for this to be released.
Giacomo travels quite a bit and using the big truck that he drives around is simply not an option for Mar as it is a very bulky car and inconvenient for Mar to drive around town. If you are a mom who drives around her kids you will understand.
For years the minivan has been the biggest blessing as that is what we have needed, but that is no longer the case. It won’t sell for much so it will not be enough for a down payment on another one.
Getting a loan here is not an option as we do not have a fixed income and no bank wants to loan to us and besides that the interest rates here are too high.
So you can see we need a miracle on wheels 🚙. Would you join u sin prayer. Selling the minivan will give us around $4800 💵 towards the payment of a better car but we would be missing quite a lot more of we really want to get a decent car that would not give us maintenance and fixings the first years.
Thank you for praying with us for this miracle. Raising funds additional to our monthly needs has been hard as the kids are about to start school and we simply do not have extra in the budget to put towards this need.
Trusting the Lord knows the need and that He knows the way and the time of His provision!
Pray for:
1) the minivan to get fixed, pass inspection and sold
2) miraculous provision for the new car
Praying increased Faith and love in 2019 for you and your loved ones and those around you…
39 Now [a]at this time Mary arose and went in a hurry to the hill country, to a city of Judah, 40 and entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42 And she cried out with a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! 43 And [b]how has it happened to me, that the mother of my Lord would come to me? 44 For behold, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped in my womb for joy. 45 And blessed is she who [c]believed that there would be a fulfillment of what had been spoken to her [d]by the Lord.” (Luke 1:39-45)
Mary is full of awe, yet stunned at what just happened. A messenger of God had appeared to her and told her not only was she going to have a baby in the most miraculous way, her old relative Elizabeth also was going to have a child and she was already 6 months along.
Mary knew what to do and gathered her things and hurried to the town where she would find Elizabeth.
As she stepped into the home and greeted it something amazing happened. No prayer was prayed, no hands laid on Elizabeth, but as Mary uttered the greeting when she entered the home, the baby (John) leaped inside the womb and not only that, his mother (Elizabeth) was filled with the Holy Spirit.
Imagine that, a greeting caused this baby to leap and its mother to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Right then and there Elizabeth exclaims in a loud voice: “Blessed are you among women and blessed the child you will bear.”
Elizabeth counted herself favored that Mary would come to visit her. I can only imagine the people in the town talking about ‘old’ Elizabeth, probably not blessing her with their words. Yet Mary comes in, blesses the home and it causes a chain reaction. Her faith, her heart, her obedience to hurry over to Elizabeth’s house, to share this moment with her causes a chain of events even in Elizabeth’s life that I am sure blessed her beyond words.
The baby leaps for joy and Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit. In return Elizabeth speaks forth a blessing over Mary that she is blessed because she believed what the Lord had spoken to her. She believed it would be accomplished.
Yesterday I posted the story of the angel visiting with Mary and how she expressed such faith in believing it would happen to her as the messenger told her.
Now, Elizabeth also recognizes and blesses Mary for believing the Word of God to her life and not only believing it, but believing it will be accomplished.
Two women, full of faith, with a heart to obey, to live life in obedience to the Lord, to be used by Him to bring forth promises of YHWH to their people.
What has God spoken to you that you are doubting about, that you are having a hard time believing? Are you still struggling with the “how” it will happen? Are you still wondering wether the words were from God or not?
Mary knew enough about God that she trusted the words of the messenger to be from the Almighty. She didn’t question it even if it didn’t make sense to her mind. She took this into her heart and chose to believe that it would be as He said.
Elizabeth confirms this over Mary’s life and calls her blessed for believing that word and believing it would be accomplished.
This Christmas Eve as you ponder on the beauty of the birth of Christ, may you also ponder on the words that have been spoken over you. May you walk in faith and trust that the word He speaks will be accomplished.
Maybe the circumstances are strange (so were Mary’s), maybe the word is rather odd (so was Mary’s), but God’s words always come to pass, they will be accomplished. Walk in obedience and there will be others who will see your faith and will call you blessed, others will start asking you about your faith, others will not understand it, but you just keep walking in what He spoke to you, do not waver to the left or to the right.
As you ponder, may your heart rejoice like Mary’s and bring forth a song of praise to the Lord God Almighty. May you be able to say along with her:
“His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation.”
Equipping and Sending 